Version 2.0: Android Blogging, Re-Imagined

We’re pleased to announce that WordPress for Android 2.0 has been released to Android Market! This version is packed full with new features to make your mobile blogging experience better than ever. Check out the video and read more about what’s new in the update below:

New UI: Action Bar and Dashboard

The Dashboard

Everything you want to do, all in one place. The Dashboard is the first thing you see when launching the app and it provides one-tap access to the most common things you use such as creating a new post or viewing stats. A new comment count ribbon shows you how many unapproved comments you have in your moderation queue. Want to post some media quickly? We added Quick Photo and Video buttons to take you right to the camera so you can shoot the moment and instantly attach it to a new post.

Also new is the Action Bar, which allows you to quickly switch blogs, refresh content or show the Dashboard from wherever you are in the app at the time.

New Post Editor

The Post Editor

The post editor has been revamped, allowing more control over the post content than ever before. A formatting toolbar has been added above the keyboard that allows for easy rich text editing and adding links. You can now add media content wherever you like and edit the Title, Caption, Placement and Size of images. The editor also is now full screen, so you can see as much of the content as possible while editing.

We’ve also added support for Post Formats, you’ll see a drop down menu in the post editor that allows you to select the appropriate Post Format.

Tablet Support

Got an Android Tablet? We’ve got you covered! We paid special attention to large screen devices in this release. When you’re viewing Posts, Pages and Comments you will see a scrolling list of items on the left, with a detail view on the right. Many other areas of the app have been optimized for tablets including the post editor and stats.

Browsing Posts on a Tablet

We’ve also added support for the newer 7″ tablets, including the Kindle Fire (app will be available in the Amazon Appstore soon).

More Changes

In addition to these great changes above, here’s what else is new:

Stats chart improvements

Background post uploading

WordPress.com Read feature improvements

Post Status is now displayed in post list.

Reliability improvements and more!

Get Involved

WordPress for Android is an Open Source project. Many people contributed to this release, including Anirudh who participated in the 2011 Google Summer of Code program and worked on the app for his project. We’d also like to extend a big thanks to all of the beta testers who helped test the app out on their devices before the release. If you want to help make the app better, check out our developer blog for more info.

Wiped out all my logins. Lots of fun reentering secure passwords not. App keeps saying XML blah blah blah failure WHEN CONNECTING TO WP.COM! Unbelievable. I would think that would be the one site that worked for sure.

Also, why are buttons displayed that are not functional? If I am on one of my non WP.COM hosted blogs; the “read” function is not available. Why show it?

I’m loving this app! I am always on the go to photographic locations and this app will make it easy for me to check stats, reply to comments and do short posts if I want in the middle of no where as long as I have a cell signal. I’d like for the read button to work.

Working on a Samsung Galaxy S2 with a self hosted site, but when I go to stats, the wordpress.com login/password are rejected. Working fine via browser and triple checked as correct. I can’t find a way round. Used to work fine in 1.5.

Also, feeling like a bit of an idiot, I seriously can’t find where I’m meant to input a new account. It took my two accounts from the prior version just fine, but I can’t see where i can input information for other wordpress sites… Please, someone tell me I’m missing something.

Hmmm, I posted a thank you on here yesterday…. but I think my comment disappeared! Anyway, the addition of the formats on this plugin make it stellar! I don’t like posting big, long posts from my phone, so only having access to standard formats was poinless to me. Now that I can use asides, status, etc. I see myself using this plugin darn near daily! Thanks for the efforts!

Hi! When I write a post in the Swedish version I can´t add any pictures. The only way to add a picture is the “quick photo”. Is there something that I´m missing here?
Love the other updates of the app!

I’m having the same issue NL mentioned above, can’t login to stats. I’m using jetpack on a selfhosted multisite installation, if that matters. I definitely use the right user/pw that works for logging in at wordpress.com….

I’m trying to be open to new things, but on my MyTouch 3G Slide when I attempt to edit a published post, it automatically adds an extra line feed between paragraphs. That may not sound like a big deal, but I write poems, so there’s a hard return at the end of every line. If I publish a 32-line poem in eight verses (so there’s already white space between stanzas), and then decide to change one word after upload, I have to manually delete all the extra line breaks! In the desktop app I can switch to HTML mode to avoid this, but that doesn’t seem to be an option here. It was’t an issue at all before the upgrade. I should mention that this is EXACTLY the behavior that drove me from Blogger to WordPress 15 months ago. Again, I’m trying to like the change, but this minor point is a huge deal for me. Thanks for reading this far.

This is a seriously weak upgrade. I am not sure how many of the guys who gave it a thumbs up actually used it before they hit the like button but there are serious issues with it.

For the context, I used the old client to post about 300 times over the past 6 months. I have had 36 hours with the new client and it lost 2 drafts, caused one fatal OS crash, is so slow to update (eg local drafts – uploads) that it is a joke. Kitchensink menu does not display in landscape orientation, Done button does not close keypad… Forced update… I don’t want to carry on with the list.

Sorry to hear it’s causing you trouble. We’re working on the 2.0.1 release already, in fact there’s a build over at the dev blog if you want to try it. If you truly miss 1.5, here’s a link to it. Better uninstall 2.0 first though as the database will probably get confused going backwards. http://db.tt/Lym4E9mK

Hi, I hope you will patch soon! I’m disappointed.The new version doesn’t support the keyboard on the Xperia X10 Mini Pro. Every key I press returns two characters, like: “Mmeerrrryy. Xxmmaass”. Right now I can’t use the app and I miss it because it’s been one of my favorites. Hope you’ll patch the app!

Unfortunately my device parameters were ok for the 1.5, but 2.0 seems to have different requirements.
I have Samsung Galaxy Mini (Android 2.3.5, LDPI screen), and Market reports it is not compatibile with the latest WordPress app, so I am stuck with 1.5. Could this be fixed?

Thanks for this great update!
I just have a problem when uploading a photo, the html code shows up instead of the picture. I’m using it in my Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 running Gingerbread.
Thanks in advance.

I appreciate your willingness to explore solutions. Since my first post, I’ve realized the problem is much worse than I’d thought: Even local drafts get automatically reformatted, so I can’t save a work-in-progress without all the spacing going wrong. I made the mistake of opening a long narrative poem I’ve been drafting since March–a Christmas poem I was planning to post today, on Christmas Eve–and it’s hosed! Hundreds of lines, all double-spaced, with zero distinction between stanzas (where I actually wanted–and had added–double-spacing)! I have no choice now but to upload to an online draft so I can fix it on my desktop computer. The days (and weeks and months) of composing a line or two whenever I had a moment of inspiration are gone, unless you can somehow restore a WYSIWIG or even HTML editing option.

I was very sad to see, just now, that this didn’t get addressed in the 2.0.1 update. Please fix this, soon. Happy Holidays!

By the way, if you look at http://trollpants.wordpress.com you’ll see that I haven’t missed a day since Christmas Eve last year, more than 365 consecutive poems posted. This is something that matters a GREAT DEAL to me. Again, thanks for reading this far.

Thanks for the app guys! Overall I am very happy with it, but I’ve found one (possible) bug. I can not upload pictures to the second site in a network of sites. I can upload posts, edit post, and it switches just fine between the two sites (blogs) on the app, but can’t upload pics to the second site. It works just fine to the first site.

Also, when I try to connect to the dashboard, I get a URL not found error.

I cant seem to get my (3gp) videos to upload mo matter what I try! Is this not working for anyeone else or has someone been able to do it and how???
It is the main reason i wish to use this app it to put videos of my rentals properties to my site for people to vies instead of just photos.
Pls help if poss!

Are you able to upload the videos to your site through the browser? You might need to make sure that the mimetype is allowed upon upload. Check out this plugin, it allows you to configure the file types that the uploader should allow:https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/pjw-mime-config/

Tried to add it w/browser and it errored w/ the security message so It might not b the app. I did add the format 3gp to settings>media but no luck. Looked into adding it to allowed ,mime list for my domain but the dir i found for plesk look nothing like what i see for my plesk panel so I had to write a ticket to hostgatr to try to get logical directions to get to the right place in panel to add it. hope they can answer quick bc I need to get this to work asap… yeaterday!

googled “webkit based browser” and gchrome was listed so tried in that and still did not work. Could not even click the play arrow but in ff i could!

the demo site is http://flowerman.newcastle19720.com/2011/12/27/ggjhvgh/
if u wish to see and maybe u can figure it out. I am about to giv up. I have some homes for rent I owuld like to take vide w/phone and use wpapp to make post for visitor to see instead of just pics but I guess it is easier said than done…lol

thanks for help so far .i am just fustrated bc I was up all nite trying to get to work

I was thinking of video press but from what I read in forums people were having probs w/that too. They seem to think it will only work w/ .com not .org so I guess I will have to wait a while longer and keep up on the progress.
Another weird thiing is that the videos will upload and i can see the player(wont play tho) but when i view the page in the phones browser that i used to take the video the player is not visible …just empty space. My phone SHOULD play the 3gp right?

Also what is the right way to add to the list in the pjw-mime pi?
3gp video/3gp or 3gp video/3gpp or 3gp video/3GPP

I have seen it written many diff ways but not sure if I am just not adding it right in the plugin settings.

Do you have or do you know of a site that is .org and has the wordpress app who have been able to post videos from phone in 3gp format? If it WONT work I dont wish to spend more time trying to get it to. I hate failing but not if it is impossible.

When I try to edit existing articles on my blog (created with the “normal” webinterface) the App (2.0.1) crashes. I can create an article and edit that one, though. Does the app have restrictions regarding some html-code?

Would love being able to use the app on the road… (Medion Lifetab P9514, Android 3.2)

There’s a very big bug by using the Keydock from ASUS Transformer. No german keys like ä,ö and so on are working…. Can’t use Version 2.0 within my hardware keyboard. 😦 please fix it as soon as possible…

I’m still having problema when attaching photos with articles. Either the photos don’t get attached or the resulting post will have the html code for the image show up instead.
Has anyone figured how to solve this problem?

If I open the app and click the Stats button the stats get refreshed automaticly and show. This doesnt work with the posts and comments button. It should be nice if all the sections are automaticly refreshed after you clicked them. Speccially comments.

I get an error when I press the “Pages” button saying: “http status code: 401″ And I have to press ok and i get a white screen. After that I have to return to my homescreen and restart the app.

I would also like beter space handling on my screen. I feel a lot of space is unused that should/could be used better. A button for all the blogs I follow would be great. I believe only .com users have that option now. But im a .org user.

Version 2.0.1. is so far awesome. I do all my blogs from my Android phone and to be honest have not experienced any of the issues mentioned in previous comments. I just love the new look, the extra features. “Freaking AWESOME”, well done developers.

Hi, I have a problem with the new (swedish version) update of wordpress. My phone is an xperia pro with keyboard. When I write posts using the keyboard for every key I press the letter is written twice. This only happens when I am using the built-in keyboard and not when I use the touch screen keyboard. However due to the size of the screen using only the touch screen keyboard is not an option.

When I share a web link then start typing, everything becomes underlined. This occurs sometimes immediately or at the end of the post. I then try to remove the underlining by touching all the words, but once done it’ll just come back. Very frustrating for an otherwise awesome app. Using Droid 2 with SwiftKey X.

Recently switched from Blackberry to Android and I have to say just from a WordPress point-of-view I’m glad I did. The new UI is amazing and so easy to use with WP.com and self hosted WP (I’m currently running v2.0.2) – Really like the way you can get to the dashboard and everything seems so much more easier and 10x faster. I did have a few sync problems with new comments in v2.0.1 but all is fine now with v2.0.2.

I have a pandigital. 7 inch noval with andriod 2.0 but Android market won’t let me download wordpress why? Wife tells me I don’t have a Android phone with my account were can I get it at wordpress for my pandigital tablet

On my self hosted wordpress blogs, attempting to get stats with android version 2.0.2. App must not be connecting to wordpress.com, just says site not found or wrong username or password. I can login to wordpress.com ok so it’s not a password error.

I use the app and it works fine, tried to install it on a friends phone and everything works but the stats, it keeps saying the wrong username or password is being used when trying to get his blog stats. He is a stats freak and can’t get to them on his phone.

I set both blogs up on the same server, they even use the same theme, I get to my stats easy using the app.

I have a handful of self hosted blogs to monitor too. It was working fine, but about the time that 2.0.2 came out i wiped my android and reinstalled the wp plugin from the market. Must have had the previous 2.x? installed before. I’ve been going bonkers trying to figure out why it quit working.

Another thing worth mentioning is, I have a wp plugin called Bad Behavior that was blocking 2.0.2 from connecting to my blog on setup. Disabling it allowed my blog to be configured on 2.02 ok. But enabled or disabled 2.0.2 still couldn’t connect to wordpress.com. I emailed the author of bad behavior but he blamed my carrier T-mobile. The error in the logs was something about a header “connect” was missing or something along that line.

I just upgraded from 2.0.2 to 2.0.3 on the Evo 4g, and have lost connectivity through the stats link. It worked fine in the previous version, but now I get the same error mentioned above about asking for WordPress.com login info, and then when I enter it it rejects my info. My site’s address is http://www.dollarversity.com, and I have no other issues besides this.

I love WordPress for Android. I use it on my Galaxy note with resolution of 1280×800 and everything works just great.

I like to suggest two features.

1) It would be great if you add a pure black theme. AMO LED Screen can save lots of battery on Black background.That mean I can write more/longer posts on my phone on the way. Its also more convenience and good for eyes to write post at dark environment using black theme.

2) It would be great if I can insert photo directly from clipboard. Currently Camera Icon at post editor allow to:
a) select photo from gallery
b) take a new photo
c) Select a video from gallery
d) Take a new video

I like to have another option to past photo into text editor. Now it just allow to past text into post editor. I wish I could use my S pen function to simply take screenshot of screen and add some arrow and comment using Galaxy note S pen feature without leaving Post editor.

After that WordPress for Android is very nice application. I love the way it notify me on android when I get new comments at my WordPress powered sites .

I would like to see a “Make-a-concept-post” widget. A widget button that causes nothing else then opening a post screen with a title bar, text window/bar thingy and a “save-to-blog-” button. Or not maybe a widget, but a button that causes this reaction.

This is most definitely a very functional app for managing one’s website from an Android device. It allows one to manage posts and pages (in HTML only, mind you), and do some quick uploads.

However, the thing that I believe that this app is sorely missing is the ability to manage custom post types. I have several custom post types on my WordPress site, and am unable to manage them from my phone. My custom post types are just as important – if not more – than my regular posts, and those custom posts need to be accessible in the mobile app, and thus would love to see that functionality added to a future version of the app.

Likewise, one cannot work with custom fields in the app, and that is a bit of a drawback as well. Would also greatly appreciate having the ability to manage custom fields for posts/pages/custom post types in a future app.

So all in all, it’s a very good, functional app, but I really would like to see a few additional features to make it even better.

I love this app and would even like to see a version of this interface for the dashboard. The thing I really love is the quick video from the android camera. the only thing is that the video wont play in Firefox only in Chrome… any thoughts about the MP4? Also it would be great to preset a store on Youtube and embed from there option. Also it would be great to have preset Featured Image that could stay from post to post… This would be good for the web version too.

If I post from the app to my .org blog on http://www.wiggersrobert.nl it always (realy, every time.) creates two posts when I send it as draft to my blog. And as I always create drafts on my phone, this is a real annoying issue.

hiya. i have installed this app on my samsung galaxy s2. runs very well and looks really nice. one question though, i see youcan select which blog to access from the bar at the top, but how do i go about viewing my blog in the app? so i can scroll down and read through it etc? i have tried all the buttons in the dashboard and i am still lost. any help will be much appreciated. thanks

We are using this app in schools for students to post to a school blog. This new version, whilst great for a blog owner, is getting complicated for users who only need a ‘Posts’ function. There are too many buttons now!

If you could add a way of hiding some of the buttons that would be great. For example if the user has Author rights only, the ‘pages’ button shouldn’t be shown – this role doesn’t have permission to create pages.
So maybe this could be automated depending on the user role?

i had several drafts/non-uploaded posts on my phone with the old version of the app, but then had to get a new phone. it’s the same phone and i used the same micro-sd card. no way to retrieve those posts pretty please?! 😦

I have read a couple of comments on android market regarding photos not showing.i just tried to post a photo and it just doesn’t show. Both in browser and app the image is gone. Are You looking in to this, since there are so many comments about it in the market it should be easy to reproduce.

Dan,
at first I couldn’t get it to connect at all, then it wouldn’t find the blog. I had tried to address a suspected xmlrpc blocking issue with my host but to no avail. Thanks for that apk dropbox share – problem solved.

I love this app, but I tried adding a new post and after editing some text hitting my back button will not work. I hear a double or multiple click sound (the “back” sound) but it just sits there. This is on a Samsung Galaxy S2.

Additionally, it wont allow me to add multiple images in one go. When I am able to make an edit, I can choose multiple images from my gallery but when I submit it truncates most, except the first image link.

Having some sort of confirmation button, like Esti above suggested, may be better than teh back button, then you can assign a function to it to actually send you back to the post properties page.

Just a thought.

Oh, Will you be adding the ability to upload media, separate from within a post? would be great for future posts.

Thanks, we fixed the back button issue today and will push an update out tomorrow. With multiple images, does your device allow you to select muliple images from the post editor? It should just be one at a time. You can share multiple images from the gallery though.

I was adding one image at a time to the article but not “saving” in between.
I would press the “media” button and add an image, then do it again and again.
I then hit save as draft but only the first image resolved. the rest of the img links were broken. no info contained. just empty tags.

Great app with one huge problem for us concerning excerpts. Not only can I not edit a story’s excerpt, if a story already has an excerpt and I edit it using the Android app, the existing excerpt is *deleted*. The deletion of an existing excerpt is very naughty behavior.

Hi again, I still can´t get images to upload, now with version 2.0.7
I get an errormessage that You can see here:http://tinypic.com/r/2823prp/5
Is it something on my end that prevents me from transferring images?

Are there plans to add media upload separate from creating a new post?
Also how about the ability to use custom fields? A lot of templates these days use them to add to thier posts. OK, the templates I use do (elegantthemes)

Yep, will check my blog. I´ve just started using WP and haven´t got many addons- I just use “recent” and “calendar”. But as I´m a noob in using WP I´ll try to correct whatever is wrong. The funny thing is that I am thinking of moving my site from Joomla to WP just to make things easier to update via our phones but so far WP by phone has given me more hassle than relief compared to Joomla by phone.

Hi Dan, I’m having a heck of a time with images. I cannot seem to add more than one image at a time in a post, without uploading in between images. If I try to add more than one any previously added images are removed from the editor. If I upload one image at a time I can go back and edit and previous images appear as code. At this point I can add another image, but only at the end of all other content. No matter where I place the cursor the image always goes at the end. This ends up taking 30 mins for what should take 3. I’m using this blog for work and need to be able to add images from the field. I’m on a Droid X and using a basic wordpress.com site.

Selecting multiple images from the gallery app did allow me to add multiple images. I then saved as local draft and reopened the post for editing. When i tried to add one more image all the others turned into “obj” and when i saved the post they all disappeared.
As far as the cursor, if i place it between two paragraphs of text and add a photo with the media button the image is inserted at the end of all content, and again, if i had added any other images without *uploading* the draft any of those images disappear. Saving as local draft does not allow for editing.

I would like to be able to edit a post through out the day as I am working on projects.

I have installed a fresh WP 3.3.1 (Swedish) on my testsite and images are uploading fine. I will edit my wp-site in steps to get the look and functions I want and report back what, if any, errors I get using this app.
Thanks Dan for quick responses to my problems – keep up the great work

I just download this app, and cannot figure out how to access my drafts from it. I can start a post, and save it as a draft from the app…..but then the draft is nowhere to be found on the app. It does save it to my account, but it seems can only edit it from my computer. Am I missing something? Thanks for your help!

What a great app! I love that I can select multiple photos, and type text between them.

Video uploading from my Samsung Galaxy S (Captivate) doesn’t work to my self-hosted WordPress blog. It’s an .mp4 file, and when I don’t set anything in PJW Mime Config, or I set mp4->video/3gpp (I do this because the Gallery reports the type as 3GPP), I see “Uploading media item #1 in the Notifications forever, and the post never posts

If I set PJW Mime Config to mp4->video/mp4, then when I try to post I see nothing in the notification bar, and the post never posts. I’ve tried authoring a post using the .mp4 on my PC via the browser interface to WordPress, and it uploads just fine.

I’m so close to the perfect blogging solution from the phone. Any suggestions how to get this working?

I have problems uploading a post with photos to my wordpress.com blog. I tried to make a post with three photos, and only one got uploaded. Perhaps this was because of network issues, I don’t know. Anyhow, there were no error messages, all that happened is that only one photo was uploaded and added to the post text. And in the post, that photo was presented as a direct link to the image file, rather than as a separate page. I was not given a choice between image file or separate page, as in the browser interface. Nor could I insert a gallery.

I tried to upload the pictures again from the app. It hadn’t noticed that anything was amiss, so it showed me the post as it was on the web. When I went to edit it, the existing photo was not shown, only HTML code linking to it. When I added a photo again to reupload it, it was shown as a thumbnail in the app. This mixing of editing modes really isn’t helpful.

Is there a way I can add a link, like a blogroll link, like in wp-admin/link-manager.php, through the android app? I’ve tried changing the “post format” to ‘link’ and it just goes into the blog as a normal post.

Might just be me but I am confused as to the Dashboard button. I have a self-hosted WP site and when I click the dashboard button and try to login with the correct credentials it fails. Is this login at wordpress.com or my site? Sorry if its a stupid question.

App seems very useful..
But there is a problem. There is a post which was in draft. When I tried to access the post using WP for android, I see the HTML view with all those codes…
Is there a way to fix this, or am I missing some option?
P.S. I can still see the published posts in normal view (not the HTML one)

Any luck getting the 3gp videos to play on self hosted! I tried a few times and it wont play or show up at all. It is uploaded but wont play. I have the plugin to allow the .3gp file type. I have Huawei Ascend.

I have vid site and would love to be able to post videos from my phone to my blog but they never work. I think it bc they are in the .3gp format. Mp4 works might work ok. I cant seem to get an answer about this. It would work it would be cool!

Heya this is kinda of off topic but I was wanting to know if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if
you have to manually code with HTML. I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding skills so I wanted to get advice from someone with experience. Any help would be greatly appreciated!